To ask what makes you middle class?

[Wantobeareader]

I am not from the UK so not very familiar with these class definitions (which personally I cannot stand) but I am curious to understand what people mean with MC. I thought it was a term referred to the fairly wealthy but apparently lots of people and incomes seem to fall into that categories.
So, how would you define Middle Class? Feel free to type a description of a typical MC person you can think of :)

Rather than income I would say its about attitudes .
for example deferring gratification . For example I was taught to save for a good quality new item rather than say getting it on credit or poor quality.
my own perception is that you can be wealthy but not middleclass - if
you have things like big tvs - show off things - that to me feels like a clas signifier.
we are poor financially but have a small tv , a v v old car ( dont care) , retired early on not much money because we dont care and dont feel the need to keep up with the joneses - I feel like I am middle class in my thinking because am not defined by material things - I could be wrong !

I think our "degree" culture has skewed it. I was born in 1960 and was from what I would describe as a "well heeled" rather than upper class/aristocratic background although my grandparents were local landowners and a "county" family. On grandma's side one didn't have to go far back to find horse thieves who fled from Ireland. I went to a "naice" school and it was the doctors'/academics'/lawyers' daughters who were pushed to uni. There were also a significant minority of girls from army families or the old multi-nationals: Imperial, BAT, etc, where much time was spent overseas.

Not many went to university at all. A large number scraped O'Levels, they weren't regarded as hugely important and went to: secretarial college, cookery school, floristry, interior design, etc. Most married well. All were very well educated despite not being well qualified. An example of this would be the late Diana, Princess of Wales although she was of course an aristocrat.

DH went to the local comp (first year after it stopped being a grammar), went to Oxford and became a lawyer. His parents were teacher/engineer but their parents were servants/mining railways. Their mindset was working class and they brought up their DC to think they were beneath others. They had no networks. Despite that they pushed their DC to university but didn't prepare them with the social skills that bring confidence. DH had to build that.

It's complicated.

It is complicated, I'd certainly agree. I definitely think your husband is middle class though, as middle class angst is well known. It sounds like your background was more upper middle class?
I wish we didn't have a class system here. I get very anxious about it. I think the reason I get so upset about middle class people saying they're working class is that it's been used as a means to guilt-trip me before now. I've got a standard English accent, not posh, but well spoken certainly. But that's just having grown up in a village in southern England. My parents are actually Northern Irish and I was born there. We moved. My mum is from a farming background, kind of classless. My dad from a mix of working class and lower middle. My mum trained to be a nurse, and my dad went to uni (first generation) and did various blue and white collar jobs over the years. We never had money, and I went to state schools; but I'd say our home was fairly culturally middle class in some ways. I dropped out of college for health reasons, and have had an unconventional work life, mostly self-employed. I rent. I'm not well off. I've been bullied before now, purely due to my accent and so on, by people actually far more middle class than me, at least in their adult lives. Even a former landlady of mine would tease me for being very middle class (mostly because I was listening to radio 4!) But she was my blooming landlady! Owned two homes. She was an NHS manager! Way more middle class than me, in any meaningful sense. She would bang on about how working class she was because her dad's family were working class. But, my life then, as a minimum wage worker, was more working class. So, it really hurt. I guess that's why it's a sore point for me.
I genuinely have no idea now what class I am. I feel somewhat classless, as I'm not easily defined...

You can feel any way you choose to feel - it's nobody's business - feel like the Queen of Sheba if you like, convincing others is a little bit more challenging but given you don't care about what others think that won't concern you either.

Sorry - I meant retrievers as in labs, goldens etc. Gundogs would have been more accurate!

In comparison, WC people I find have dogs like huskies, "designer" breeds like extortionate French bulldogs. Or they'll have a rescue. But they get rescue dogs in a different way to MC people. MC make having a rescue dog their entire personality and that they're holier than anyone who has a purebred. WC with rescues will cheerfully tell you "Oh yes, this is Bella. She's probably a yellow lab mix. No idea really, she's great and we love her. What's your dogs name, he's cute!"

Same, apart from the high salary, unfortunately.

But, if you're a university-educated, salaried professional you're definitely middle-class, in sociological terms. I don't mean specifically you as an individual. I mean you as in one. A salaried professional is what middle class is. I've always understood it to be that.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/18/why-professional-middle-class-brits-insist-working-class

This article is worth a read...

Yes I have seen the update.

Yes this is my thinking too.

@Ruminate2much

Yup. Deeply dishonest and performative. I have privilege but at least I own it. And my grandparents were domestic servants...

Thank you! I totally agree. Yeah, the grandparents thing gets me with the faux working class. Most of us had at least one working class grandparent, as the traditional working class has shrunk in recent years; and the middle class has expanded at the same time.
Yep, we all need to own our privilege 👏

What makes you middle class? Not having tattoos helps.

Samantha Cameron is verging on UC and she has a tattoo. Ditto Sienna Miller.

I know lots of staunchly MC ladies of Surrey with tattoos.

A recent survey suggests 28% of MC people have at least one tattoo whilst only 27% of WC do

Your opinion is somewhat dated.

I thought Samantha is definitely UC as she is from an aristocratic family.